Derek Fierro, a Chicago Public School teacher who recently adopted a rescue dog has been charged with beating the 14-15 months old puppy to death.

About 3 a.m. Friday, Chicago Police received a call from a man saying he had been angry when he killed his dog and placed it in the trunk of his car, News Affairs Officer Laura Kubiak said.

When officers arrived in the 500 block of West Roscoe, he gave them the garage code to the building, his car keys and permission to open the trunk of his car, where they found the dead dog, Kubiak said.

He told officers he arrived home and found the dog had eaten every piece of paper in the house and defecated on itself, Kubiak said. He told police he became angry when the dog continually struggled as he tried to place it in the bathtub to wash it, and that is when he beat it to death with his fists.

Fierro is a 4th-grade teacher at the Eugene Field Elementary School in the Rogers Park area, according to the school's website. The CPS Office of the Inspector General is also investigating, a CPS spokesman said.

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I just signed the following petition addressed to: State's Attorney Anita Alvarez / Chicago.

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Subject: We demand maximum sentence for Derek Fierro, a CPS teacher who admitted to having beaten his puppy to death!

The shocking case in which Derek Fierro, a 4th-grade teacher at the Eugene Field Elementary School in the Rogers Park area, has beaten a 14-15 month old puppy to death, will appear before court this Friday, August 17, 2012.

Fierro has admitted to beating the pup to death with his fists; the brutal beating followed the dog's struggles as Fierro attempted to wash the pup in the bathtub.

This is brutality of the worst order, and raises concerns as to Fierro’s mental health. Is this the sort of vicious person we want as a teacher to our children?

Fierro should be immediately suspended from the Eugene Field Elementary School and his teaching license revoked. Someone who is capable of beating a defenseless pup to death should not be allowed to teach children ever again.

Links between animal abuse and crimes against humans amply demonstrate that violent offenders frequently have histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty. The FBI has recognized the connection since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had killed or tortured animals as children. Other research has shown consistent patterns of animal cruelty among perpetrators of more common forms of violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse.

According to a 1997 study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and North-eastern University, animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes than are individuals without a history of animal abuse.

That said, we demand that the abuser:

- is served non-bailable jail time;- is barred from ever having animals in his care in the future;- is immediately relieved of his teaching duties, and - has his teaching license revoked.

Expressing a fine and barring the abuser, isn't enough; Fierro must be locked up, because it is proven that people who commit such crimes against animals rarely stop there; they are very likely to harm others, particularly children and other vulnerable persons.

We believe you will agree that this sort of incident has no place in a civilized society, and we trust that you will express a sentence that fits the brutality of the crime and demonstrates that crimes against animals are not acceptable and will not be tolerated.